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VGA are a over-produced advertising show, no more. I don't really pay attention to them, neither do most people I know.

Yeah, the question of corrupt or not corrupt is irrelevant, it's a commercial dressed up as something else.

It's like those 2 hour 'megafactories' car commercials on discovery where the PR representatives hype up for example a dodge charger with all kinds of marketing speak to describe the handling and the company policy.

It's an elaborate ad dressed up as a documentary.

VGAs use the same concept.

The headline should have been : Are there people out there so retarded that they don't realise this? (answer would be a resounding YES)

Yeah, the question of corrupt or not corrupt is irrelevant, it's a commercial dressed up as something else.

It's a debate of corruption if we are to assume that there is some form of critical integrity with which to read these reviews and watch these awards ceremonies.

If we simply assume that all games reviews are an arm of the marketing department of games publishers, then yeah, it's no longer an issue of corruption, but then there's also no reason ever to read games reviews.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

I disagree to the notion that all awards and most of game critics are corrupt. They might simply have a different taste in games. Winners of such awards/popularity contests are often enough the lowest common denominator.

VGA are a over-produced advertising show, no more. I don't really pay attention to them, neither do most people I know. Games don't really have awards with a certain credibility, like the Oscars (arguably) are for movies.

Exactly what I was saying. They aren't giving awards for quality, but more for popularity. If The Witcher 2 would have won, all but 5 people in the audience would have just stared in silence for a second before unleashing a collective stage-rattlingly loud, "Huuuuh?"

It's a debate of corruption if we are to assume that there is some form of critical integrity with which to read these reviews and watch these awards ceremonies.

If we simply assume that all games reviews are an arm of the marketing department of games publishers, then yeah, it's no longer an issue of corruption, but then there's also no reason ever to read games reviews.

I'm talking about the VGA awards specifically here.

Reviews, well there are many from many sources so you have to look at it case by case.
Review magazines/websites/blogs/those super elaborate standard PR package image/banner threads on neogaf can be anywhere from sincere to bought by a PR department to just directly designed and released by a PR department.
The main difference here is that their whole spiel and whole pitch is objectivety and consumer interests.

PR tactics like viral marketing (aka shills) are well documented in other industries so it always amuses me to see gamers dismiss the idea of forums/websites/review outlets containing shills.

There are numerous accounts of (non gaming) companies getting caught when they pay actors to mix into the crowds at unveilings/pr events to spread excitement and specifically to show enthusiasm when the media interviews the crowd for their opinions.
Some google-fu will show you plenty of real world event examples outside of the interwebs.

Again, viral marketing is well documented outside of gaming, influencing public opinion in any way possible is very effective (US food industries spend millions on halftime ads to convince housewives that high fructose corn sugar is awesome because 'sugar is sugar')

Just look at any large gaming forum, the general concensus and mood of any thread about any new game is almost always set within a few posts.
Peer pressure doesn't stop after highschool, kids. People are eager to have a sense of belonging and bored people are eager to get excited about anything. Gamers are double susceptible to both for obvious reasons.

If you can pay a few people to spend a few weeks at key times to reach hundreds of thousands of people and influence their perception of your product under the guise of a casual observer then ofc you will take it. (jaded reaction to corruption)

Hell ,it's a lot cheaper than stuffing people's mailboxes with expensive color printed ads that most people throw away and don't take seriously. Those things are just for consumer awareness.
Actually having people actively LOOK for and look at your advertising at a much lower cost and actually influencing their opinion with it is way more effective.

The neutral outsider does and should hate these practices though because it doesn't benifit the consumer and creates a lot more noise.

But hey, gamers man:
-deny!
-embrace anything that benifits whatever company they fawn over no matter the effect on them

It's blatantly obvious at times. Have you ever read a review and thought to yourself "Wow, this game sounds terrible. The author is just bashing the game left and right for several paragraphs" and then you get to the end and see the score and it's a 90/100?

Just to say, although I really like Metro, Halo: Reach is still a better game. Yep, uh huh.

No its not better. not by long shot. it got awards and recieve high score because its halo no matter how mediocre halo is it always recieve high score because of name. Corrupt Mainstream media always put popular games over quality games

It's blatantly obvious at times. Have you ever read a review and thought to yourself "Wow, this game sounds terrible. The author is just bashing the game left and right for several paragraphs" and then you get to the end and see the score and it's a 90/100?

No its not better. not by long shot. it got awards and recieve high score because its halo no matter how mediocre halo is it always recieve high score because of name. Corrupt Mainstream media always put popular games over quality games

But Metro 2033 is a very linear game with pretty poor gunplay. Halo has some scripted cutscenes sure, but it allows you far more freedom to do what you want, while no open world has large open sections of map where you can do stuff in the order that you like. Halo 1 was well received for a reason and Reach is just a continuation of that, just with more stuff to do. I don't think it's ever gotten undeservedly good scores.

the most important thing for these so-called 'journalists' is getting the review out as early as possible (more pageviews) and building good relations with publishers to get early/exclusive access to news/games

Umm... have you even played Halo Reach? I've played it, and also Metro 2033 and Stalker COP. It's certainly better than Metro. Better than Stalker? Hard to say. Certainly more polished but perhaps not quite as memorable.

Oh wait, are you going to accuse me of taking bribes from MS now that I'm not hating on Halo?

But Metro 2033 is a very linear game with pretty poor gunplay. Halo has some scripted cutscenes sure, but it allows you far more freedom to do what you want, while no open world has large open sections of map where you can do stuff in the order that you like. Halo 1 was well received for a reason and Reach is just a continuation of that, just with more stuff to do. I don't think it's ever gotten undeservedly good scores.

On a console market.

Originally Posted by Mohorovicic

There was a saying about this... what was it again?

Oh right.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

It's not stupidity or malice. It's money.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen